


it only takes a second

by jm_serendipitous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Future Fic, Implied Mpreg, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-02
Updated: 2012-10-02
Packaged: 2017-11-15 12:07:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/527141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jm_serendipitous/pseuds/jm_serendipitous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Dean gives birth to his and Castiel's daughter, the eldest Winchester has to deal with the consequences and what it means for any future family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it only takes a second

**Author's Note:**

> You can listen to the accompanying playlist here: http://8tracks.com/jmserendipitous/it-only-takes-a-second

_“You have to love something before you can feel its loss.”_

They name her Mary.

While he hardly knew his mother past four years and a handful of encounters from beyond the grave that he can count on one hand, the name flutters from Dean’s mouth the second Bobby places her in his arms, a wailing, squirming pink-tinged newborn that he cradles close to his bare chest, head supported in the crook of his elbow. He’d gotten himself stuck on a passel of other names over the past five months, favoring Lynsey in particular, but she is so quintessentially a Mary with her curiosity and the strength as she grasps onto his index finger.

She rustles in his arms and it’s like everything vacuums into just her, all else rendered obsolete, forgotten in the moment of connection. It’s more powerful than he imagined, this bond he can feel instantly imprinting between child and parent, betwixt two souls only minutes ago cached in one body but now blinking at one another all their own. Dean’s only marginally aware of Castiel pressing cool fingers to his sweat-matted forehead and of the aching pain in his body evaporating, physical exertions numbing. Even his hands cease their exhausted tremors. 

All he feels are the tears pricking the corners of his eyes and the distension that balloons his heart. In the back of his mind ‘elation’ and ‘unconditional love’ are supplied charitably to him, a purity to the emotions that shocks him somewhat. Even the unconditional love he feels for Sam defaulted by blood is tainted by past betrayals, submerged in distrust and yielded to caution. But this…

Much like his hope, Jimmy’s denim blue eyes peer up at him and Dean knows that nothing untoward, perverse, ill can touch his love for his daughter. It is not a whim he’ll decidedly cast off.

“Mary,” he whispers by rote, genuinely marveling when a flicker of recognition passes over her eyes and the edges of her plump lips tug in a tiny smile, her cries fading.

Dean looks up at Castiel then, breathless at such a small, inconsequential signal. The angel, hanging precariously at Dean’s right shoulder, the shuffle of wings swallowing the air behind him, shifts, studying Mary with his inherent intensity as if unclear on the procedure now, what to do with this new development in his non-human existence. It’s perhaps the first time he’s seen a child up close, nevertheless a child of half his own grace.  It must be surreal.

“I think she recognizes me,” Dean divulges aloud, unable to quell the awe.

“Course she does,” Bobby intones from his other side, the gravel in his voice contradicting the tears standing on the ends of his eyelashes. He squeezes Dean’s shoulder, offering a proud smile where brilliance is reflected back. “You did good, son.”

“Yes,” Castiel assents, eyes ceasing to stray from Mary, “you did.”

Dean slips his finger from Mary’s grasp to pull the hand-stitched blanket over her arms, securing it as tightly as her incorrigible wiggles will permit, the sudden fear of her catching a cold or another sickness clenching his nerves. As he does this he spies Castiel’s hand move in his eye’s periphery; tentatively, Castiel brushes a thumb over Mary’s forehead, grazing the tuft of black hair that curls along the crown of her head, and then strokes the back of his hand across her cheek.

She reaches blindly for him, arms flailing in the open air, before he willingly forfeits his hand, unable to deny her. Like she had done with her other father before, she grasps his index finger and holds it with her two hands, delicate fingers exuding an unanticipated power. Dean hears Castiel take a sharp breath, unprepared for the contact, and one glimpse of his partner, at the astonishment christened on his face, the wideness of his eyes, belies that he is no longer alone in his union with Mary, that the circle’s been opened for completion.

A tear leaks down Dean’s cheek, but he doesn’t move to swipe it away, wouldn’t dare touch such a thing. “She’s perfect,” he observes. She’s small and light in his hands, can’t weigh more than six pounds, and there are still patches of cherry red blood covering her, but she has ten toes and ten fingers and, yes, she is perfect.

“She is,” Castiel says, barely audible.

Dean can feel the mattress dip a bit—he hears Bobby clap Castiel’s shoulder, the answering grunt and can only guess that Bobby has given his belated congratulations—but his entire focus is on Mary. It still doesn’t feel real, even as he holds her. He’s rocketed up to the moon, reveling in this rite of passage he’s been privileged to serve under, birthing a new life. Because here she is, finally, this little being that he and Castiel created, this impossibility that happened, this rarity that occurred. He can’t believe it, can’t believe she’s here, can’t believe how much he loves her, can’t believe she’s his, can’t believe anything that is his life in this room.

God, look what he accomplished through the pain and aggravation and perpetual disquiet. Look at her.

“Cas, look what we did,” he murmurs, more to himself than his partner.

Except maybe Castiel does hear, maybe they both do because the vibe in the room shifts anxiously in one fell swoop, the change unmistakable. The elation bottoms out. Castiel retracts his finger from Mary’s grip, straightening, and even Bobby seemly itches in place. Dean quizzically looks up at Castiel and…his entire demeanor has thwarted, dismantled, backpedaled. Any wonderment or astonishment that previously graced the angel’s visage has vanished, replaced with a decathect crease in his brow and his perfunctory thin-lined lips.

It slaps Dean hard, that the joyous scene could be lost so quickly, that his weightless high could be sobered without a courtesy caveat. Drawing his knees forth, he huddles Mary closer to his chest, hunching his shoulders protectively, as if to shield her. Bobby says his name patiently, but he ignores the older man (the most blasphemous of the impending treachery; hadn’t this been the very man that had delayed in informing him of Sam’s return because he’d gotten every hunter’s fantasy, a normal life with a family that was his?), eyes centered solely on Castiel.

He shakes his head, the litany of “No” escalating in force as he says it again and again.

“Dean, we discussed this,” Castiel reminds him. “We cannot keep her.”

And just like that, as with everything else in his life, the beatitude is brief, momentary, two ships passing in the night, there and gone. His heart cracks down the middle like a fault splitting him apart, destruction on either side. But then a fury fires low in his belly; angry that Castiel is forcing this upon him, angry that Bobby is playing accomplice, angry that he could be handed his dream one second then stripped of it the next. Damn the Powers That Be and Fate and whoever motherfucking else.

“You make her sound like a puppy,” Dean growls, jaw setting. “She’s our daughter.”

“I am well aware. But we discussed this. You agreed.”

Dean remembers the discussion well, accurately, in more detail than he cares for. Castiel had appeared in the cabin one Wednesday morning shortly after Dean had returned from a trip into town and had espied him fondling a onesie with the eagerness and worshipfulness of any soon-to-be parent. It had resulted more in his conceding than unanimous concurrence, always sitting coldly with Dean, stirring up uncomfortable feelings whenever it was mentioned, indirectly or discreetly. It hadn’t been something he’d dwelled on often, choosing in fact to often forget than have it loom over his head for the remaining two months.

In the dawn of light the logic behind the decision seems holy illogical. Why would he ever surrender her into the unknown unprotected?

“Dean.”

Castiel’s hand falls onto Dean’s head, cupping the crown, fingertips skating along the sensitive hairs. At the touch the anger dissolves and the tears return, a lump lodging in his throat as his nose stings. The wall he trusted to keep him stoic and apathetic to nearly all aspects of his life, the sturdy dam that never crumbled under the persistence of vulnerability, crumbles then and there. This is too big, he knows, for indifference to play a role.

He bites down hard on his bottom lip to prevent the tears from running freely down his cheeks, stroking Mary’s head as she stirs, unequivocally sensing the tension transferring between her parents. “Please,” he entreats raggedly, staring up at Castiel. “She needs to be protected.”

“The greatest way we can protect her is that no one know, that she grow up as an ordinary child,” Castiel explains carefully. “Without us.”

Bobby takes a conscious few steps back, allowing them their room, vultuous eyes downcast. Dean hopes the man that has been a father to him understands what he’s doing, what he’s befouling his hands in. He hopes Bobby understands just how this is going to alter him; he knows for certain he won’t be the same after this, if anyone ever is. _Why do you want to take away my_ _baby_ , he wants to asks, keens with the opportunity to lash, to make the older man feel as worse as he does. _Why do you want to do this to me?_

He shakes his head again, a kneejerk reaction. “Let’s keep her, please. No one has to know. Cas, no one has to know. I can keep her under the radar.”

“Dean—”

“I can take care of her— _we_ can take care of her,” he asserts, knowing that he’s straining, that he’s grasping at straws, that he’s fighting a fruitless argument. Castiel’s face falls even more. “We can raise her, we can keep her safe. We can.”

Castiel leans into him, his hand drifting down the line of his neck. “I am sorry, Dean, but I do not trust that that is a suitable future for her. That is no life for her.” He pinches the short hairs there, a feeble attempt at reassurance. “When the time comes we will return to her life. When we are needed. Until then she will have a better life without us in it.”

“How can you say that?” Dean demands.

“Because I love her.” He doesn’t know why but the sincerity in which Castiel murmurs the words, true and indisputable and impassioned and without hesitance, renders him stunned. Castiel stares at him, allowing the words to marinate, letting them hang there heavily, not to be doubted. “It is my love for her that, as a father, I want her to live as ordinarily and therefore as safely as she possibly can. We cannot protect her, Dean.”

Dean is silent for a minute, closing his eyes as another tear seeps out. He inhales and breathes, “No one has to know.”

The more he says those five words— _no one has to know, no one has to know_ —the less he believes them. She’s half Winchester, a fourth Campbell; it’s optimism at its worst, entirely a delusion to believe she’d go undiscovered by any demon, creature, enemy still walking about. He _knows_ that. It had been part of the very reason he’d nodded his head and ended their discussion two months ago, knew that Castiel was right then and knows he’s right now.

He’d long ago grown accustomed to letting go of things (people) that were dispensable, had accepted the life he’d been saddled with at four years old, and he’d always been surprisingly okay with it. It’s true too many attachments could get him killed, could get other people killed. It’s why he didn’t establish attachments, why he plagued dalliances, why he used to live off one-night stands and still in motel rooms.

Yet here is the one person who really _does_ need to live without him and he wants to hold onto her forever.

Castiel deposits a tender kiss in his hair, a pop of affection so rarely seen by outside eyes that Dean’s heart stutters. With the touch he exhales shakily, readjusting Mary in his arms; the little girl watches her fathers with inquisitive eyes, taking in everything.

Adoration manifesting once more in his eyes, Castiel gazes down at her, head canted. It’s irrefutable then that he’s as impartial to giving up their child as first glance deemed. Even if he’d never say it aloud in open confidence, he does not favor this plan anymore than his partner, however choosing to honor her best interests than their selfish desires.

“It’s best for her,” he propounds, just for Dean to hear.

Dean nods. It is, but it doesn’t hurt any less; if anything it only hurts more. _We’re not what’s best for her,_ he fills in tacitly.

Because that’s when it really sinks in. Dean will never be her dad. Castiel will never be her dad. Fathers but never dads. There are no ballet lessons or tea parties in their future. They will never praise her for a good grade on a test or cheer for her at a school graduation. There will never be eligible, enterprising boys on their doorsteps to pick her up for a date. They will never give an opinion on a dress or drop her off at a dance. Dean will never teach her how to fire a gun and Castiel will never endeavor stories of the millennia’s past.

Their roles will be taken over and they will be reduced to chromosomes, maybe to a wish she has someday down the line when curiosity can no longer be hindered. She’ll call another man ‘dad.’ Probably a man with a normal job in a normal house with a normal family. A man who gives her a sibling and provides her with everything and spoils her rotten. Dean wishes that idea wasn’t so agonizing, torturous.

“Dean.” Bobby’s brusque voice cuts through the silence, snapping Dean back to the present, casting his eyes upward to the man. He’s taken the necessary steps back to the bed, arms now extended expectantly, needling, revoltingly. “It’s time. Give her to me.”

Dean returns his attention to Mary, ignoring Bobby until he wiggles his fingers, more demanding. “Give me another minute,” he pleas in response.

Castiel and Bobby pass a look over Dean’s head; Bobby drops his arms to his side, supplementing with utmost candor, “Look, kid, I know this is tough, but—”

“Shut up,” Dean snaps disputatiously, scissoring a look to the older man that shuts him up long enough to roll his eyes and release an exaggerated sigh. Bobby’s always been a patronizing, no-bullshit sort of man, all bark and bite, the idjit brothers the catalyst for most of the honest brutality, but rarely is he sympathizing, rarely does he offer pity and practice mollycoddling, something they each have in common, and it’s that that grates on Dean’s nerves.

He tensely asks again for another minute, but Mary is already scorned by the rough exchange. She fusses in Dean’s arms, arching out of his hands and kicking her legs wildly, eyes squeezed shut and face reddening to a beat tomato. He strokes her head comfortingly, doing anything he can think of to calm her; he’d feel awkward about it in any other situation, but he can’t bring himself to care, not when his entire focus has cylindered to this one task.

“Shh, shh, Mary, it’s okay. It’s okay. I didn’t mean to shout. I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he coos.

Then, on instinct when she proceeds her commotion to a more rancorous level, the memory of indefatigable nights flood to the surface of his mind, when her restlessness had come in the form of kicks while he’d tried to sleep, when he’d laid a gentle hand on his stomach and softly told delirious stories in the dark, hushing her until she tapered off into slumber.   

So he opens his mouth and sings.

“And so today, my world it smiles, your hand in mine, we walk the miles. Thanks to you it shall be done, for you to me are the only one,” he croons under his breath, humming in between breaths. “If the sun refused to shine, I would still be loving you. When the mountains crumble to the sea, there will still be you and me.”

It takes far longer than usual, finishing a full circuit of the lullaby, and only when he’s satisfied with the rhythm of her breathing, with the way her eyes shift under the diaphanous lids, does he wipe the remaining blood away and cagily transfer her into Bobby’s arms, pressing kisses to her temple and whispering his apologies thrice over. Bobby’s gone in a breeze, scuttling from the room without a word until he’s heard rummaging as inaudibly as possible in the kitchen, leaving the parents in the abrupt silence. Dean stares at his vacant hands, choosing to ignore the way Castiel’s eyes track Bobby’s every move.

It’s several minutes before Dean moves experimentally, creaking his joints and bending his limbs for the first time in eight and a half hours. There are still evanescent flashes of discomfort, little aches and sores, nothing a day’s rest won’t knick in the butt, but mostly he feels…Mostly he’s devoid of evidence, vacant of clues that he’d been pregnant, that he’d even had a child. There isn’t a scar from the cesarean incision, nary stains of bodily fluids. It’s as if it were all a dream—a radical, nonsensical dream of buried desires that only the subconscious could generate into something too tangible to not be a waking dream.

It’s…shuddering. And he feels more hollowed because of it.

He reaches his arm out to Castiel, beckoning with the command, “Help me up, Cas. I want a shower.”

The angel promptly grasps his bicep and hauls him up some, lending support as he swings his legs over the side of the bed, wincing as he goes. A flicker over his shoulder confirms, yeah, they’ll definitely be washing these sheets before they leave. Maybe burning them. They’ll see how it goes.

The groan he emits as he totters to his feet puts Castiel on alert, his fingers digging into Dean’s skin and saying Dean’s name in that cautionary advisory manner that he long ago perfected by dealing with the Winchesters and their daily art of reckless misadventure.

“I’m fine, Cas.” It’s a half-ass reassurance collaborated by a bland smile, one even Dean wouldn’t believe if he were on the receiving end, but Castiel knows him intimately enough that he doesn’t question the eldest Winchester, merely wraps one arm around his waist and assists him to the bathroom.

Dean is, if anything, grateful for Castiel’s nonresistance.

\- - - 

_“It is in your nature to do one thing correctly: tremble.”_

By request (and according to plan), Bobby leaves with Mary while Dean’s in the shower. Water tripping along his back, hands braced on the tile wall, Dean is serenely insensible to the unfettered devastation he would’ve felt had he had to watch their departure, a small seed of peace he prays to as he closes his eyes, letting the water drop off his eyelashes and trickle down the curve of his nose.

While he doesn’t doubt that Castiel (sensed, ever vigilant, sitting where Dean left him, cross-legged on the floor just inside the ajar door, immobile, loyally at his hunter’s side) can in fact hear everything, Dean cannot. The shower drowns out the click of the front door as Bobby closes it behind them, the creaks of the Impala, the roar of her engine and then the soft purr as she’s idled around the cabin then rolled onto the street. It’s all part of the plan, down to its last microbe detail; if he can’t see, hear, presently be then he won’t be affected. He’ll be spared the infliction of loss.

Or so he previously believed.

For all his planning he’s unprepared for the surge of emotion that smothers and suffocates him, for the accompanying coldness that fills his veins and raises goose bumps all over his body when he is, once and for all, severed completely from Mary. _She’s gone._ His heart constricts painfully and he almost cries out at its unexpected bind, the sound lost as his lungs give out next. He can’t breathe, gasping for air, desperate for it, fingertips now digging into the wall, shakes coming upon violently.

He’s light-headed on quaking legs, at the precipice of collapsing, and in the midst of what he knows is a full-blown panic attack. Just like the ones Sam used to have as a kid when John would stow them in small spaces to hide, the young Sam begging to be let out, needing to be out. Just like the ones Dean still has on occasion when faced with a situation that involves flying in a silver bird. But this one isn’t spurred by claustrophobia or air travel and doesn’t have an easy fix; Dean has no idea what to do. _She’s gone._

He hears the faint clacking of shoe soles on the floor then the grating squeak of the glass partition being drawn back, systematically knowing Castiel is coming to his rescue. But he can’t manage words in his closed throat to protest the interference before the angel steps into the stall with him and manhandles him into his arms, hands heavy on Dean’s neck, roughly pressing their foreheads together and demanding that Dean look at him.

But Dean can’t focus on anything but the alarming need for air, can’t stop thinking, oh Christ, he’s going to die right here and now, naked and in the shower only an hour after giving birth to a daughter he’ll never see grow up.

He barely hears Castiel say his name again, wheezing, “Cas, I can’t—I can’t—breathe.” _She’s gone._

Then there’s a hand on his cheek and he clearly hears the same order, “Look at me.”

When he does, frantically grabbling for purchase, Castiel’s face opens and he wraps an arm around Dean’s waist to steady him, breathing demonstratively for Dean to mimic. He takes Dean’s vulnerability within himself, accepting this part of him as readily as any other, the bad with the good. For the hysteria, it all lasts less than two minutes; his breathing regulates, chest moving shallowly, carefully, and the cold recedes as swiftly as it invaded, replaced with renewing warmth that is purely Castiel.

They stand there for several minutes, wrapped around one another, Castiel watching Dean with guarded vigor while Dean soothes his body to normality. Light after-trembles skirt under his fingertips and it’s then that he realizes Castiel is still fully dressed, suit sodden, clinging to his svelte frame, dress shirt practically transparent, having not taken a moment to divest in his rush to get to Dean. A pang of guilt flows through him, he frowning, berating himself for being so selfish, for not paying closer attention and not taking care of Castiel after he’d taken care of him.

He lays quick work on the suit, peeling the jacket from Castiel’s shoulders and tugging the tie loose enough to lift it over Castiel’s head. Castiel proceeds to watch Dean painstakingly, an almost hyper-awareness to his concentration while Dean licks his lips and picks at the tricky shirt buttons.

It isn’t long, Dean on the last button, it slipping repeatedly through his hands, before Castiel speaks again, interjecting the undressing with, “Are you all right?”

He’s not, so far from it. He’s never felt so bereft ( _the_ perfect _fucking word_ , he thinks) in his whole life, not even after his dad or Jo or Ellen or Lisa. But he doesn’t know how to convey it into words, what’s never been a strong suit, raised in his masculinity to not discuss these things. He has to remind himself countless times that it’s Castiel: an angel that knows him completely. As it is, Castiel wouldn’t be It for him if he couldn’t be exposed in every context of the word.

“I feel weird,” he confesses, hushed, another of their little secrets. “And empty. I hate it.”

Castiel nods, drawing his arms back as the last button gives way and Dean sheds the shirt, dispensing it on the tub’s floor, reaching for his belt next. Closing his eyes as Castiel’s fingers skim along his hipbone, Dean focuses on his task, anything to keep his mind off what just transpired, _why_ it transpired at all. The wound is too fresh to prod at. And yet it has to be addressed, can’t be swept under the nearby carpet. One of them will have to say it eventually because then it’ll be real.

If they say it they can move on. And that’s the only way he’ll get to be okay. And he has to be okay. For everyone. 

“She’s gone.”

It’s time. 

\- - -

It’s a full twenty-eight hours before the cat wrests from the bag.

The cabin is quiet in the late morning hour, save for the distant clinks and clanks of Castiel tidying the kitchen down the hall and the low-volume companion radio, warmed by the ascending sun despite the early March season. Dean packs his bags peacefully in the back master, has been packing for the past thirty minutes, pensively loitering mostly, looking out through the bay window at the unruffled lake just off the way, squinting his eye as a bluebird swoops down.

He takes his sweet time rustling up every article of clothing and scattered toiletry amongst over things, the innocuous paving of a comfortable domesticated life. He shovels the paperback copy of the Ruins (an addictive read despite the context, though more fitting than the Da Vinci Code that had been handed to him at one point) that Nina had given him last week into a side pocket of his duffel, nestling it with a couple DVDs and a deck of cards, smiling to himself.

Glancing sideways out the window to the left of the splintered wardrobe, he spots Nina and Alan’s ranch house cresting over the slight hill and entertains in brevity the idea of trekking over to say goodbye properly, to thank them for their hospitality. ‘Cause without their affability and their insatiable need to include him in whatever—dinners, poker nights, drives into town, the irregular movie—he probably would’ve gone insane with how isolated he’d been.

He wants to say goodbye to someone for once, but he probably shouldn’t though. Probably won’t.

Gathering a shirt from the pile he’d emptied onto the bedspread, he pushes the restive thought away and takes to folding the shirt, stuffing it in the duffel then snatching up another, transitioning into autopilot. Mechanics are sort of the only way he’s still standing.

He goes about this way for only another minute when he hears the distinct flutter of wings behind him. His hands still in their motion and he forgets how to breathe temporarily, put upon by the interruption because, outside Castiel and Bobby, no one is supposed to know where he is. Least of all any of Castiel’s wayward brothers and sisters. Slowly, nervously, he cranes his head around and peaks over his shoulder; surprise gives way to resignation at the sight of a tall man with his blond hair slicked in a pompadour standing by the door, hands pocketed, studying him with all the intrigue of a medical student inspecting a virus under a microscope.

Dean rakes his eyes over his visitor, cataloguing him accordingly. “Which one are you?”

“Jeremiel.”

 _Son of a bitch_ , he groans. Just what he needs: an archangel.

“Well, I do feel sorry for whatever poor bastard you turned into a pod person. How’d you find me?” he inquires with a sigh, dropping the folded shirt with the others and picking up another, bracing it against his chest and creasing the sleeves neatly along the spine.

“We’ve always known where you were, Dean Winchester,” Jeremiel replies coolly, rocking back on his heels. “Even Castiel cannot hide you from someone as far up in ranks as I.”

“And here I was under the impression that all you big wigs went into the Angel Protection Program yourselves.”

“Circumstances have changed.”

Dean nods, pursing his lips, purposely keeping his back to the archangel. “Good to know. What do you want?”

Jeremiel doesn’t answer, the silence stretching to such a length that Dean half-suspects the guy’s up and flitted off, left him hanging, appearance serving as a warning. Still rather off-put by elongated silences, he hums under his breath as he finishes folding his pile, the entirety of it being strategically dispensed in various compartments of his duffel and the suitcase at his feet. Maneuvering around the bed, he crosses the room to the dresser tucked into the corner beside the bed and plucks out some of Castiel’s civilian clothes, a few shirts and a pair of black jeans, specifically cultivated during one of his extended stays at the cabin when he’d worn of Dean’s ill-fitting attire.

Closing the top drawer with the shirts tucked under one arm and the jeans cinched between his fingers at his side, he stops with his eyes on the now barren dresser surface, on the dustless spot beside the lamp where a white bear Beanie Baby with gold wings and matching halo had sat, the faintest smattering of glitter dusting the appendages. An insignificant toy he’d noticed in an antique store’s front window, he’d almost given it to Castiel as a gag gift, a little something to ease a smile onto his face, maybe earn that breathy laugh Dean was fond of.

But then they’d had “the talk” and he couldn’t imagine giving it to anyone but Mary, knowing that he could be a part of her life even if she had no idea he was there, even if she’d never know why it was left with her.

He almost regrets that now. God only knew if she’d actually keep it.

“They say the loss of a child is the deepest of despairs,” Jeremiel interjects suddenly.

Dean flinches invariably, disguising it by clearing his throat, and saunters back to his duffel, facing Jeremiel as he plops the clothes inside, pressing on them hard to get underneath the boundary of the tracks, and yanks the zipper around. “Yeah, and? Is that what you’re here for?”

“Dean, Dean, Dean—” Jeremiel chants, stepping up to the meager man.

But Dean takes a step backward, hands flying up to hold out in front of him, and Jeremiel halts. “Is that what you came here to talk about?” he snarls, recalcitrant, taking unkindly to the archangel’s uncooperativeness. “You’re wasting your breath. Mary’s gone, okay? She’s gone. Cas and I refuse to raise her in this life so leave her out of this. She’s not a part of it.”

He gusts past the archangel, knocking shoulders in a way he knows that’ll hurt, is marching towards the door when Jeremiel deflects, low and callous, “Of course she is,” and he stops dead. “You said it yourself: she’s one-half Winchester and one-fourth Campbell. It’s in her blood. You cannot _choose_ for her to not be in this life.”

“No.” She can’t have a childhood like his, can’t grow up surrounded by monstrosity. He can’t do that. _They_ can’t do that. What gives him the divine right to swoop in and piss on his life, to contradict his choices for his daughter, to open healing wounds and dose it with salt? Does he not understand what a hunting life would do to her? “What do you want?”

“To give you what you deserve. To give you what was always meant to be yours. Your greatest desire, Dean Winchester. Something you won’t dare confess to anyone, often times not even to yourself because you feel you failed the last time you were granted the opportunity. To have a family of your own,” Jeremiel clarifies.

Dean laughs, the sound tasting bitter in his mouth, coppery like blood, metallic on his tongue. “I had one. A real one. But that doesn’t much matter to you, now does it? Because we gave her up. Cas and I have to be a family without her. Hunters don’t get to raise kids with a white-picket fence. We are adjusted enough for apple pie. But, as _you_ said, I proved that already.”

“But her birth will not be the last time you see her.”

He rounds on Jeremiel, glaring. “You spinning the same story?”

“Happiness is obtainable if you choose, in fact, to honor what must occur for it.”

“What does that even mean?”

“You will see your daughter again. Much sooner rather than later. Have patience.”

And there it is again, that heart-constricting coldness that coils through his entire body. The very thing he’s been unsuccessful in doing: _not_ thinking about her. She’s the only thing he thinks about, buffeted by this yearning to remember her. He hasn’t talked about her, however, interrupting others when her name was mere seconds from escaping their lips, stealth in his efforts, victorious in his objective. He knows she’s gone, has said it aloud, turned away from Castiel in bed with that proclamation, but it’s like…The less any of them say her name, no matter how much they think it, they can be moving on to the outside world while internalizing, fooling everyone. Since the panic attack, Dean had come to the conclusion that he _needs_ others to believe he’s doing fine. He’s still the big brother and the patriarch.

Because the loss is still palpable within him, thunders too close to his heart, erratic and uncontrolled. He misses her too much, had been remiss with sleep the night before: the light puncture of her heartbeat, the benevolence in her eyes, the slight tilt of her head, how she looked at him like he hung the moon, the way her face lit up when she recognized Castiel’s voice. He misses her inexorably. When he murmurs as such, making himself say it aloud, Jeremiel answers knowingly, two paltry words, and Dean hates him just a little for it, for his omnipotence.

There are things he wants to ask, things he wants to know, if only to mollify the other emotions gnawing at him and the things he has barred himself from saying. The guilt that he had to give Mary up, the anger that he was forced to. He worries explicitly that she won’t find a good family, that no one will want her, now or later.

What’ll happen if she has visions as she gets older or hones in on the angel channel? Who’s she going to be more like? Will she ever come looking for him or Castiel? And if she finds them…how will he ever explain? Who they are, what they do… _what_ she is. Will she hate them? For abandoning her by choice, for giving her away, for even creating her.

What if she hates them?

Will she be all right if she never becomes a Winchester?

For the minutest moment, Dean prays Mary never comes looking for him.

Jeremiel is still as Dean succumbs to his muse, watches him intently, and Dean doesn’t even speculate whether the archangel is listening in, knows for a fact that he is, has been, despite the impassive, blank and flawed countenance. If they’ve known the whole time, if they’ve been listening…The knowledge reels in Dean’s mind.

He opens his mouth, exhaling shakily, and what comes out is colder than he’s sounded in years. “I saw the way he looked at her, you know. Cas didn’t want to give her up anymore than I did. So fuck your prophecy. I blame you for putting this thought in his head.”

He waits for a snide remark, for a furthermore convoluted response, but then the bedroom door’s opening and he pivots around at the same time that he hears Jeremiel’s swift getaway, just as Castiel stands in the threshold, hand gripping the doorknob.

 “Hey,” he greets casually, all else draining from him. Castiel shifts to poke his head around the room, deliberately searching for something, and Dean furrows his brow in confusion, at least feigning it. “Looking for something?”

“Dean, who were you conversing with?” Castiel asks outright, stare garnering that intensity that always has Dean wondering if he’s looking through him and can hear all his secrets even when he’s lying.

“Oh, no one,” he chuckles instead, meandering back to his duffel, foot tapping the suitcase on the floor. “I’ve gotten used to talking to myself. But, hey, Sam called during the…you know.”

Sam. Sam who he’s thought so little about in the past seven months, who he hadn’t taken an hour out of his days of nothingness to call or e-mail. He’d _started_ e-mails, sure, had flanked out everything going on in that little town, but it’d always resulted in dribble, awkward and cavalier small talk that didn’t have any place in their dysfunctional relationship. But it wasn’t like he could talk about what was really going on: how morning sickness was a bitch, how he was sick of having to pee every nine minutes, how his back hurt constantly, how he’d gained so much weight it was disgusting and how he was going to kill Chuck if he called one more time about it being unfair he had to chronicle some mythical pregnancy, warts and all.

Yeah, _that_ wouldn’t have raised questions at all.

“He found a werewolf pack in White Plains,” he continues idly. “Sounds like a couple of them have been munching on the locals. Bad dogs.”

“Did you tell Sam?”

“Tell him what?” Castiel looks pointedly at him, head tilted, and the response is tacit between them. Dean sighs, rolling his eyes. “No, Cas, I didn’t tell him and I’m not going to. He doesn’t need to know.”

“Dean—”

“Why would you want to tell him? I thought that was why I’ve been up all this time, because we _didn’t_ want Sam to know about the kid.”

Despite the evidence of past incidents validating Dean’s suspicion of his fallen brother, Castiel does not account for them as he proceeds diligently with, “I’m sure he’d like to know he’s an uncle.”

“Why? He’ll never get to see her.” Why lob her absence off on someone else? Dean checks the zippers on his bags, confirms that everything’s where it should be and is in place, then hoists the duffel onto his shoulder, suitcase in his hand, moving on like there’s nothing left to discuss. “So, the hunt, up for it?”

Castiel’s eyebrows knit together in an expression that Dean knows all too well, that scowl forming on his lips as he trails his partner down the hall, intending that the topic may be over now but be prepared to revisit it. “I believe it would benefit your wellbeing to spend a week recovering at Bobby’s.”

Dean’s step falters, imperceptible to someone not looking for it, to anyone who couldn’t see through him quite like Castiel, who steps closer to him and places a hand on the small of his back, guiding him forward. Dean closes his eyes, willing open the channel he stapled off years ago, willing Castiel to let this too go ( _I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m_ fine.).

“I’m recovered. Let’s go silver some weres!” he barks.

Castiel takes the suitcase from Dean’s hands, ignorant of the hunter’s grunted protest, and obstinately argues back, voice suffused with exasperation, “You need to recover appropriately. That insinuates more than a day and spiraling into denial.”

They stop at the door, Dean having turned off lights in the hall, kitchen and finally the living room as they went, shrouding the house in vacancy once more, and the two stare at one another, Castiel monopolizing the doorknob with an unrelenting grip. He’ll be unwavering in his advisement, Dean knows this, and he won’t be past calling Bobby for assistance because the old drunk will agree. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad; it’d give him time to adjust and it would put Castiel at ease. That alone is worth it.

With a scoff Dean relents, “Fine. One week.”

Castiel nods, the corner of his lips twitching, and twists the knob, pulling the door open. “Thank you.”

Plucking the Impala’s keys from where Bobby had tossed them the day before, picking through the hodgepodge of other rings until the glistening whistle shimmers amongst the others, Dean ushers Castiel outside, shooing at the billowing trench coat until he can shimmy out as well. He pauses in the threshold, flipping the ring once around his index finger as his eyes sweep around the house. He’ll miss the place—home, ever so humble home. 

He smiles reminiscently, inserting the key in the deadbolt and pulling the door behind him, shutting the registry of memories. He feels Castiel grab a handful of his jacket as he locks the door, the hold neither insistent nor demanding, merely a touch away, and when he turns around the hand releases the fabric and squeezes his hand. It’s too warm, electric like a wire against the biting winter air, yet Dean finds himself succumbing to the touch, dropping his forehead on Castiel’s shoulder, inhaling deeply. Castiel, a universal flare of power and eternity that now animates over this physical boundary that took a precious too long to transcend; his angel traces love across the back of his hand with his thumb, resting his temple against Dean’s head.

The quietness lasts for only a hiccup of a moment, unfurling themselves and straightening. Dean smiles for him and Castiel does his best to give back the same offering before he troops across the lawn to the Impala, their hands laced until Castiel lets go. Following him dutifully, Dean fishes out the cell from his back jean pocket, righting it in his palm and typing out a response to Sam’s earlier message.

_Sitting this one out. We’re staying at Bobby’s for a week. Have fun._

It is not unendurable.

_“The only thing I think we have left, Dean and me, is each other.”_


End file.
